What is an SSL Certificate and Why Is It Important?

In today’s digital world, e-commerce sales are becoming increasingly popular. In fact, more than 50% of Australians shop online and the average person spends nearly $300 per week. With the high popularity of online shopping comes the increased importance of a secure e-commerce website. This is where a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate gets its value.

An SSL certificate can improve the security of your website and protect sensitive customer information like credit card numbers, phone numbers, and home addresses. Not only that, but it can also boost your rankings on Google as the search engine favours more secure sites. Without an SSL certificate, Google will mark your site as not secure and could drive potential customers away from your website.

WHAT’S AN SSL CERTIFICATE, ANYWAY?

SSL certificates are small data files that encrypt data packets while they are sent through the internet. SSL certificates ensure that the data passed between servers and web browsers remain private. Having an SSL certificate on your website can secure data transfers, credit card transactions, logins, and other personal information.

An SSL certificate is combined with a domain name that has a server name and a business identity and location. When your website has an SSL certificate, the application protocol changes from HTTP to HTTPS.

THE IMPORTANCE OF AN SSL CERTIFICATE

70% of online shoppers have cancelled an order if they did not trust the website. And 64% of these shoppers say that they would have finished the transaction if the website had a trust mark or SSL certificate. This means that the more people trust a website, the more likely they are to purchase a product or service from it.

Below are some benefits of having an active SSL certificate on your business website.

BETTER RANKINGS

Google gives websites better rankings when they have an SSL certificate and use the HTTPS protocol. Google’s aim is to provide searchers with the best results and knows that consumers prefer a business that goes the extra mile to protect its customers.

MORE SALES

Because having an SSL certificate can build trust with customers, they are more likely to make a purchase and put their credit card information on a website that’s secure. When visitors go to an unsecured website and are taken to a page where they enter their credit card information, it may show a pop-up that tells them the website is not secure and ask them if they still want to proceed with the transaction. But if a website has a secure icon in the URL bar and the web copy on the page says that sensitive information will be encrypted, people will be more comfortable giving out their information.

Implementing an SSL can also increase your average order value (AOV), which is the average amount customers spend per transaction on your products or services. Security can have a significant impact on how much customers are willing to spend on your website. The higher the transaction amount, the greater the fear of being scammed.

KEEP OUT HACKERS

An SSL certificate can help you protect your site from man-in-the-middle attacks, where visitors are led to a fake site that is an exact replica of your original site. Customers that don’t know better may proceed to make a purchase from the fake website and fall victim to a phishing attack. Having an active SSL certificate can protect your customers’ personal information and prevent such attacks.

Are you ready to improve the security of your website by implementing SSL and switching to HTTPS? At the Digital Centre, we provide SSL certificates to our clients to add an extra layer of security to their websites and increase customer trust. Contact us today to learn more.